Red Bull clinched the constructors’ world championship with a stunning one-two result ahead of points leader Fernando Alonso in the Brazilian Grand Prix, but their insistence on not imposing team orders and letting Sebastian Vettel take a deserved win over Mark Webber puts them in a tricky position for Abu Dhabi next weekend.
Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso scored one of the biggest wins of his career in a rain-affected Korean Grand Prix on Sunday afternoon, and a day of total disaster saw neither Red Bull driver finish. Mark Webber crashed out early while running second, and Sebastian Vettel’s engine blew up as he was leading on the 46th lap.
As expected, nobody could hold a candle to the Red Bulls in Suzuka on Sunday afternoon as Sebastian Vettel led home team mate Mark Webber by nine-tenths of a second in a gripping race in which the five title contenders finished in the top five places. Vettel’s third triumph of the season, and Fernando Alonso’s third place for Ferrari, 1.8s behind Webber, moves the German into joint second place with the Spaniard, each on 206 points, as Webber moved out to 220 to extend his lead to 14.
Fernando Alonso scored his fourth win of the season in Singapore on Sunday night after a dramatic battle with Sebastian Vettel that saw them finish only two-tenths of a second apart after a race-long fight.
For 36 of the 53 laps at Monza on Sunday a silver car led the reds of Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa, but when McLaren’s Jenson Button ducked into the pits then it was Ferrari’s Alonso who led from Massa until he stopped on Lap 37. When he resumed, Alonso just made it to the first chicane ahead of Button, and thereafter there was never any question about who would win.
McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton won a dramatic Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday, leading throughout and beating Red Bull’s Mark Webber by 1.5 seconds despite one agonising moment, as the rains came on lap 35 and he slid momentarily into the gravel at Rivage. In the process, on a day when title rivals Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso all failed to score, Hamilton moved back into the lead of the world championship with 182 points to Webber’s 179. Vettel remains third on 151 ahead of Button on 147 and Alonso on 141.
Mark Webber turned the Hungarian Grand Prix into a nail-biting gripper when a safety-car intervention on the 15th lap upset the form that Red Bull team mate Sebastian Vettel had established from the start.
Felipe Massa handed Ferrari team mate Fernando Alonso a controversial victory in Sunday’s German Grand Prix as the red team scored their second one-two of the season and the win they were under so much pressure to achieve before the summer break, beating Sebastian Vettel’s pole-winning Red Bull into third place.
While Spain defeated Holland in the FIFA World Cup, Mark Webber dominated this weekend’s British Grand Prix from the start, rebuilding his lead after a safety-car period that allowed team mate Sebastian Vettel to get back in the game after a disastrous first corner had seen the German go off track after a light brush with McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton. The puncture that he sustained dropped him to the tail of the field.
Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel bounced himself back into contention for the world championship with an easy European Grand Prix win in Valencia on a day when a spectacular back flip left Mark Webber on the sidelines in the other Red Bull.